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in many cases been compelled by the fall in rents to shut up his mansion or let it to a London parvenu. And just as the farmer has become independent of the landlord, so the labourer has become independent of the farmer. The extension of the franchise has taught the peasantry the power of numbers, and in my county, where up to the seventies a Liberal candidate stood no chance, five divisions out of six return Liberals; yet, on the other hand, the county town, for nearly a century a stronghold of Liberalism, elects Conservatives without a contest. But the change in the towns is merely political, in the villages it is social. Titles have lost much of their respect. A lord is no longer regarded as a superior being. Democracy has come in like a flood, and even if peers do not figure more frequently than of yore in bankruptcy or divorce cases the misdeeds of the black sheep of the aristocracy now attain much greater publicity. I have no recollection of the possessions of any old or noble family in my county down to the seventies coming to the hammer. And just as respect for rank has declined, respect for money, and for anything that brings money, has increased. In the towns trade has gained caste. Half a century ago it was looked down upon as degrading by professional men and by the gentry. Even the London merchant sniffed superciliously at the retail tradesman. The feeling scarcely exists now, when titled men engage in business, and when an occupation is judged by its receipts.

There has been levelling up as well as levelling down. A piano in the fifties was never seen in a farmhouse, nor did middle-class families ever talk of a "drawing-room." I recollect the amusement of an old-fashioned housekeeper, on the sale of her deceased master's furniture, at finding the auctioneer convert the "sitting-" or "keeping "-room into a dining-room, and the "parlour " into a drawingroom. I am not sure that a farm maid-servant even now would have her letters addressed "Miss," but we all know that in towns that title is universal. It is scarcely necessary to speak of the disappearance of distinctive costumes. The Quaker dress, male and female, has disappeared in my time, along with the ungrammatical thee for the second person singular, and the styling of days and months by numbers in lieu of pagan appellations. Garments Garments are, of course, much less durable now. A "great-coat" used to last a farmer a lifetime, and a gingham umbrella served for several generations.

I might mention the progress of sanitation (we used to drink water without fear of microbes), the rise of "muscular Christianity" and the Volunteer movement, the avidity for education and examinations, the afternoon teas (callers did not formerly expect refreshments), the

1 In the fifties she would probably have been unable to read or write a letter, and I knew an otherwise enlightened man who had objected to the erection of a British school on the ground that education was not good for the lower orders.

comparative desertion of Consols as investments, even by old maids, who have consequently learnt a smattering of the money market, and the opening up to young women of medicine, journalism, and typewriting, thus rendering them less dependent on parents or brothers. But I have said enough to show what social changes have taken place during the past half century. The changes, assuredly, are not all for the better-the increase of betting is a glaring instance to the contrary—and does not Amiel, the Geneva philosopher, define progress as advance on a hundred points and retrogression on ninety-nine? Yet who would seriously think of turning back the clock ?

J. G. ALGER.

SOME NOTES ON ELEMENTARY AND
SECONDARY EDUCATION IN THE

UNITED STATES.

FOR educational purposes, the United States are not a country but a group of countries, and the systems are as numerous and as various as the methods of land assessment in India. What is true of one State need not be true of another; and a description that applies to the Eastern States may not apply to those of the South and West. For this reason it is by no means easy to draw an accurate picture of education in the United States within brief

compass.

Since the beginning of American history, New England has been in the van of the educational movement; and among the States of New England, Massachusetts has throughout held the foremost place. Before the earliest settlers had passed two decades in their new home, a complete framework of education had been constructed. Elementary education was declared compulsory, elementary schools were ordered to be created in every township, secondary or grammar schools were instituted at Boston and the principal towns, and the earliest American university was endowed by Harvard. This remarkable outburst of zeal did not, however, continue more than one or two generations, and the eighteenth century was a time of comparative torpor in New England, while in the Southern States no public schools whatever existed. It was not till the closing years of the century that a stirring of the embers began with the introduction of the ideas of Lancaster, and other teachers of the Old World.

The author of the educational revival in America, the lawgiver of the movement which has gone irresistibly forward since his death and has now passed beyond the danger of reaction, was Horace Mann. Appointed Secretary to the newly created Massachusetts Board of Education in 1838, Mann immediately began to carry out a series of far-reaching changes, of which only the more important need be mentioned. He founded Normal Colleges for the training of teachers, excluding sectarian instruction from public schools, induced the State to allocate public money to educational purposes, insisted on expert inspection, raised the scale of salaries, introduced

the practice of oral discussion in class, insisted on appropriate buildings and equipment, founded school libraries, visited Prussia to study the latest theory and practice, and by delivering lectures, drawing up circulars, and issuing a careful yearly Report on the achievements and requirements of the Board, aroused universal interest in education and effected an intellectual rebirth in the State. When Mann resigned his post after twelve years, he had the satisfaction of witnessing a general revival of the common schools, and of knowing that his ideas had been already carried out by his greatest disciple, Henry Barnard, in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and were being discussed in every State of the Union. Mann occupies a unique position in educational history. He was more to America than was Humboldt to Prussia, Guizot to France, or Forster to England.

Not long after Mann quitted education for politics, the Federal Government took two steps of considerable importance. In the first place, grants of land, extending over an area larger than Great Britain, and worth over sixty millions sterling, were set aside by Congress as a permanent endowment for education. And secondly, a Central Bureau of Education was established in 1867, which, though possessing neither legislative nor administrative powers, has acted as an immense stimulus. By its annual Report, and in other ways, it has helped to make the more backward parts of the Union acquainted with the results obtained in the more progressive and successful. The Federal Government controls the agricultural experiment stations, the military and naval academies, and the schools for Indians. With these exceptions, education is exclusively within the competence of the several States.

It is impossible to describe in general terms the machinery of education. In some States almost the whole is retained in the hands of the Government; in others, the State does little more than fill up gaps that are left by private institutions. In some States education is compulsory; in others it is not. A few, like New York, employ a highly centralised form of administration; others, like Massachusetts, prefer to leave almost entire control in the hands of the local authorities. Even where the framework appears identical, the composition of the governing bodies may differ very widely.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION.

Beginning at the bottom of the ladder, we find that it is the rapid industrial development of the country that has made a comprehensive system of elementary education feasible. The rural schools which, a generation ago, included the great majority of such children as received any education at all, contain to-day less than half the total number of scholars, and constitute the only part of the network of

institutions that remains radically unsatisfactory. In the south and west the population is often so scattered that compulsory education is found impossible. The village school, sometimes containing as few as twenty children, can rarely boast of a properly trained teacher. The salary is so small and the dearth of society so complete, that the experienced or highly educated teacher naturally refuses to have anything to do with it. The children are in consequence taught by a single teacher, without serious attempt at classification.. The distance between town and country schools, great as it is in England, is vastly greater in America.

When we come to deal with the towns, we find ourselves in the presence of a singularly complete organisation. Kindergartens, which were introduced into Boston by wealthy Froebelian enthusiasts, are now, in the majority of cases, public institutions. The latest feature in this connection is the establishment of a department for mothers.

In the town or township elementary schools, more than half the teachers are professionally educated and in the larger schools everything works with the precision of a machine. Foreign observers indeed are struck by the almost military discipline imposed, the children, for instance, entering and leaving the room in order. Yet corporal punishment is exceedingly rare, and its diminution has run parallel with the reduction in the size of classes.

The method of teaching in elementary schools differs in one important particular from the German and from our own. The instruction is conveyed almost exclusively by text-book. It is quite true that the constant handling of books enables the child to learn to master the printed page at a glance, while orally instructed children feel themselves bewildered when a volume is placed in their hands; but the practice is almost universally condemned on account of its tendency to develop memory at the expense of the imagination and reasoning powers. Text-book memorising, however, is beginning to yield to discussion and analysis in the large schools, not a little in consequence of the vigorous protests on the part of Herbartian writers and teachers.

Though the age of attendance varies in almost every State, the usual limits are seven and fourteen; but Maine retains its children till fifteen, New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut till sixteen. The course, however, is often shortened if the child is needed for labour, or lengthened if he is illiterate and idle. Compulsory attendance is practically universal in the towns. The number of weeks in the year during which a child must attend school varies greatly, in Kentucky falling as low as eight. This, of course, allows a wide margin for half-timers, and many States permit the employment of children of a certain age only when the schools are not in session. Clothing is provided for needy children in three States.

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